Once again, I am sitting on a long dark flight home. I am about 5 hours into the flight with 3 more to go. It is dark and I am terribly sad. Tears have spilled on and off since Saturday and this flight is no different except that it is harder to keep them back. So, I am going to write but I am not certain I will post. You see, I don’t know any way to write at this point but to be totally transparent. And yet, I feel more vulnerable than I have in long while. There are just some days that the ache of life takes over for a while. Surely, someone reading this has been there. The tears of my soul are flowing.
The last two weeks have been incredibly hard for many reasons. Everywhere I look, people need me or something from me, every area of my life feels somehow out of order, and although not generally directed towards me, others have disappointed me. And, I am certain I have disappointed them. And, it is now hard to control the tears. For me, that means my barriers are collapsing. I feel crushed.
And although I want to be back home, I really didn’t feel the usual relief or excitement to get home that I generally do as I got to the airport this morning. I mainly just feel DONE. I don’t feel well and my throat is closing but the strange thing is that it feels less like getting sick and more like being silenced by life. Like it’s symbolic of my inability to speak words of encouragement to myself, voice words that acknowledge the way forward, or speak words of faith.
All I really know to do right now is to write. And so on a piece of paper, I wrote my first sentence to try and reclaim that voice. And it was “what do I feel at this moment?” And, my answer was, “I feel hopeless and disappointed, fearful and burdened, empty, tired and ill.”
I feel beaten by life.
I feel separate from others and mostly God.
And I feel desperate not to…
I cannot go in to the details of the circumstances as there are things evolving and other details that are just not my story to tell. But my reaction to them is what I am sorting through. Believe me the last two weeks have been a challenge. And, I know things will not be the same in the next two weeks. Maybe better, maybe not, but different. And somehow, I know that God will equip me to move forward as he has before and as he has promised. But perhaps, you can relate to the times or seasons when all you can do is voice your faith and nothing in your being feels it. And, I am desperate to feel it…
I remember sitting on my deck last fall before dawn one morning when my son was in his last relapse. I had come to grips with the fact that this disease could take my son. I am not sure it was acceptance but what little remnant of denial that I could somehow fix this was gone. I knew that I could not make it different. My pride and arrogance that I somehow could have changed things had been crushed. My eyes were opened. And I was left with a deep sense of powerlessness and a desperate need to feel connected to God. I sat on that deck in the dark searching the stars for some feeling of connectedness. As the sun came up, I held my focus intently on the last flickering star as it disappeared as if it were my only connection to God. I feel like that now... Like I am looking for that one star in the darkness.
I feel separate.
And, I am desperate not to…
The reality is that I have that same sense of having my arrogance and pride crushed. I cannot make things better for others. It is God’s job and theirs to do. I need to walk my path with him and let others walk theirs. And, perhaps, it is that darn arrogance and pride that has led me to be feeling so separate. Perhaps, it is just that feeling of being crushed that will allow a space for me to feel reconnected to God. That will open my eyes to a new reality.
The truth is God works in mysterious and surprising ways. Maybe that star that I need to focus on came in the form of something entirely different today. I got on this plane planning to escape, at least for a few hours, the burden that I am feeling. My plan was to watch a whole season of House of Cards… One episode right after the other. I had seen it as an option on the flight over to London and felt it was a great way to escape my reality, my feelings on the way back. And as I sat in my seat trying to load it, it would not work. They moved me around to other seats but no there was no ability to watch that or any TV show so I was left with movies. And as I flipped through, I didn’t want anything that would take too much thought. I wasn’t in the mood for anything sad or silly. So, I chose Heaven is for Real. Now I had read the book a while ago. I expected that after the beginning, it might be uplifting. And it was but not in the way I anticipated. For some reason, I felt everything. I loved that little boy and missed that simpler time with young children. I felt sadness and pain when the boy got sick. I have dealt with a number of health crises with my kids and it brought all that emotion up. I felt that anger when the Dad asked God why he would take his son and I felt the confusion of trying to make sense of life through your beliefs. Certainly, I have wrestled with those questions. And, tears poured down my face the entire movie. I was thankful for the dark.
But what really got to me where some words in the sermon at the end. He opened his Bible with this note written.
Only faith opens our eyes
God is love
On earth as it is in heaven
The pastor said, “God crushed my pride and opened my eyes”. He went on to say basically that we are all given different lives to lead and God gives us glimpses of himself in different ways. We can see him in the 1st cry of a baby, or the courage of a friend, or in a thousand other ways. We get glimpses of Heaven and of God, and yet, we often choose to exist in the Hell of hate or fear (or for me self-reliance). I rewound those 9 minutes of the movie several times. At the very end, the pastor said something to the effect that God is love (on heaven and on earth) and we are called to let others know that they loved and that they are not alone. I don’t intend to debate the theology of the movie. But, maybe God was sending me his love through the words spoken in a movie to me. He has allowed me to be crushed and has blocked my plans and now he has spoken to me. He sent that star in a form that I could hear at this moment.
He has given me voice to my soul through my writing. I still feel sad but I choose to look for glimpses of Heaven on earth. I will claim God’s promise to soar on the wings of eagles over and above the circumstances of the day. And perhaps, I do feel
A little less separate and little more connected
A little less desperate and little more peace…
And with God on my side I will run and not grow weary...
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